The invention relates to a cleaning apparatus for a component arranged within a process air circuit of a household tumble dryer.
Such a cleaning apparatus is known from EP 0 468 573 A1. In this cleaning apparatus, a heat exchanger in the form of a material evaporator, arranged within a process air-circuit of a household tumble dryer, is to be freed from deposited lint by means of a cleaning brush. To this end, the cleaning brush, which is embodied as a flat brush, moves along a face of the material evaporator, in order to remove the lint or dirt of a similar kind from slats of the material evaporator at least in the area of a depth of penetration which is determined by the length of the bristles of the cleaning brush.
However this known cleaning apparatus is considered disadvantageous in that the lint settling on the material evaporator with condensate from the humid process air can be loosened from the individual slats of the material evaporator only with extreme difficulty, and is then also similarly difficult to remove from the bristles of the cleaning brush. This gives rise to a high risk that over its lifetime the cleaning brush becomes clogged with lint, and the full cleaning performance can accordingly no longer develop, which can have a negative effect on the cooling performance of the material evaporator.